me. But then I should have to ask the
parson to dinner, and we might not get on. And I should have to go to
church. I like going to church when I'm not obliged to--that is if
they'll preach me a good sermon. I insist upon a good sermon. But if I
had to go to set an example--well, I shouldn't go; and then I should get
into trouble."

"Yes, I think you would, uncle. You can't live your own life entirely in
the country. There are responsibilities."

"Ah, you've thought of that, have you? You do think things over?"

"Yes. I do think things over. There's nothing much else to do."

Mr. Birket cast a side glance at her. The sun striking through the trees
of the park flushed translucently the smooth, fair flesh of her cheek
and her ungloved hand. In her white frock, moving freely, with the
springy grace of a young animal, she attracted the eye. Her head, under
her wide hat-brim, was pensive, but she looked up at him with a smile.
"If you could bring yourself to it, you know," she began, and broke off.
"I mean," she began again, "I think you must either be a man, or--or
very young, or not young at all."

Mr. Birket was a man of very quick perception. His face softened a
little. "My dear," he said, "when you are very young things are
happening every day, when you are a little older anything may happen,
and when you are older still happenings don't matter. But you haven't
got to the third stage yet."

"No," Cicely said, "I suppose not. Happenings do matter to me; and there
aren't enough of them."

The two old ladies received Mr. Birket courteously. He was accidentally
allied to the Clintons, and in his own path of life had striven, not
without success, to make himself worthy of the alliance. He came to see
them, two old ladies who had lived all their long lives in a small
country village, had hardly ever been to London, and never out of
England, who had been taught to read and write and to add up pounds,
shillings and pence, and had never felt the lack of a wider education.
He came with his great reputation, his membership of Parliament, his
twenty thousand a year of income earned by the exercise of his brain,
and a judgeship looming in the near future, and as far as they were
concerned he came straight out of the little house on the Bathgate Road,
now fitly occupied by a retired chemist. But far be it from them to show
a brother of their nephew's wife that he was not welcome among them.

They talked of the weather, of B